Opening this year’s Busan Film Festival, Cold War is a refreshing Hong Kong crime thriller that provides enough enjoyment that should help secure a wider-audience, but suffers from an overly convoluted plot.

The film’s appeal is further expanded owing to the film’s local stars: Tony Leung Ka-fai (2005’s Election) and Aaron Kwok (Divergence, 2005), which should help drive sales across the Asian region and possibly further afield, but neither is able to deliver the necessary performances to make them stand out.

The film follows two Deputy Chiefs, Lau and Lee who are both seeking the top position on the Hong Kong police force. After five police officers are taken hostage, it’s left to Lau and Lee to solve the case, but they both have different approaches, which ultimately leads to failure. What ensures is a realization that they have become pawns in a more treacherous game.

After building a strong reputation for their contributions on a number of films, debut directors Longman Leung (credits include Vengeance, 2009) and Sunny Luk (who worked as an assistant director on 2006 film Isabella 2006) are keen to exploit their visual talents, which is evident throughout the duration. The film includes a number of well-executed set-pieces, but lacks a fine polish in places due to some rather poor CGI. Nevertheless, its strong and vibrant aesthetic does make up for some of the film’s flaws.

Produced by internationally renowned Bill Kong (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), it has real potential to perform well in Asian markets, but its sloppy storytelling may hinder its success in some other territories.

The film tells the tale of a modern magic story, in which an ordinary girl accidentally obtains magical powers from her magician teacher. Consequently, she becomes embroiled in a magical world which is beyond her control.

“Gao will start shooting the first movie of the franchise, ‘Detective Hunter Zhang’ in November. He will follow this up with a series of black comedies. We’re hoping that Gao can film two movies every year.”

During the event, Tony Leung revealed that the film begins with a police car under siege in the middle of a street. With the police station finding it difficult to cope with the crisis, everyone inside is under suspicion for being a mole.

The main investor behind the film, Edko Flim Limited, has claimed that the structure of the story is similar to that of “Infernal Affairs” in some ways, but claims that the film has incorporated a number of other elements including lots of car-chases and deadly explosions.

Producer Yuan Xiaomin announced that Cecilia Cheung would attend the Beijing and Shanghai premieres of “The Legendary Amazons”. Despite currently working on “Dangerous Liaisons” Cecilia readily agreed to appear.

“Cold Steel” stills of tough guys Peter Ho Yun-Tung, Tony Leung Ka-Fai, Mickey He and Guo Mingxiang. In the action film opening Dec. 2, Peter Ho portrays a young farmer who becomes a skilled sniper in the war against Japan. Song Jia, Angeles Woo, and Yu Rongguang are also in the cast

Hong Kong’s Next magazine published a photo of 56 year-old Gordon Liu recently. The Hong Kong martial arts star suffered a stroke and was admitted to the hospital. His right side has hemiplegia, paralysis, and he is undergoing long term rehabilitation. To prevent identification, Liu wears a knit hat and mask.

Based on a 16th century fantasy novel, the $60 million “Monkey King” plays at the Cannes Film Festival this year. For the Hong Kong film sector, creating a future with the lucrative Chinese film industry lies in the past.

A product of the Changchun Film Studio, “The Sun” (”Da Tai Yang”) was inspired by stories of the survivors’ psychological struggles after the magnitude-8.0 earthquake in southwestern China’s Sichuan Province on May 12, 2008.

Zhang Yibai to executive produce. Ning Hao is likely to cast students from his recent training program as well as regulars such as Guo Tao, Huang Bo and Liu Hua.

Director He Ping (Wheat, Heaven and Earth, Swordsman in Double Flag Town) seemed to confirm that Tang Wei’s scenes were deleted from Founding of a Party in posts he made on his weibo. He said that her performance was very good and it was pity it was deleted. Not naming her directly, He said that a “little girl” was deleted leading netizens to guess he was referring to Tang Wei. Manfred Wong doubted it though because such instructions could only from the highest levels. If true, the pressure from on high was great or simply she was edited for length as John Woo’s scenes were cut in the previous film. (Sina)

He urged Wong, whom he called “an eternal friend” to settle down as well as “have children soon” because she was getting old…The 51-year-old singer revealed that it was Wong’s father who objected to their relationship as he was worried that Chyi, a rock singer, would become a drifter in the future and would not make a good husband for Wong. Chyi Chin shows off newborn baby girl on micro blog, (CRI)

Leftover women are not only single, but are usually “three-high” too highly-educated, highly-paid and highly independent. Thus they usually have a relatively high standard for their material life. In Hong Kong, there’s the same phenomenon. Men in Hong Kong complain about Hong Kong women being too materialistic and first thing these women ask are their education background, job and salary. It’s like these women are doing target-based sales.

John Woo’s “A Better Tomorrow” showed the world what Hong Kong noir was all about, and the Korean remake of the 1986 classic is now awaiting release on Chuseok next month, with the support of Woo as a producer.

Tony Leung Ka-Fai and Kelly Lin are filming a thriller in Xi’an directed by Zhang Qi. Tony plays a mysterious doctor that has to solve six puzzles each one more suspenseful than the last. He has an ambiguous relationship with Kelly Lin. Filming should complete in September.

The back story relationship of Wu Jing and Zhang Jingchu was edited out of City Under Siege (21cn)

Andrew Lin brings his art exhibition to Beijing. He will begin work on Tony Ching Siu-Tung’s White Snake in September. Andrew worked on the special effects design on Alien 3 while living in the US before returning to Hong Kong and becoming an actor. He came out of retirement to work on special effects make-up for Josie Ho’s highly regarded Dream Home. He hopes to raise the level of Chinese special effects in the 3D White Snake which has a HK$10M special effects budget.

Hong Kong Filmmakers from the industry’s professional body composed of ten members, including: Hong Kong Film Directors, Screen Writers Association of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Society of Cinematographers, the Hong Kong Film Arts Association, Hong Kong Movie Production Executives Association, the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts Association, Hong Kong Cinematography Lighting Association, the Hong Kong Stuntman Association, the Hong Kong Film Association and the Hong Kong film post-editing professional associations, covering more than 1,800 workers over the film, as the industry’s key organizations and non-profit organizations. Committed to the protection and the protection of rights and interests of Hong Kong Filmmakers, Filming in Hong Kong to upgrade to improve the environment, as well as industry and government circles as a bridge.

Over the years the Federation of actively promoting the film industry, from film policy, education and training, which had spared no effort to promote Hong Kong films. Including the SARS outbreak during the launch, “1:99 Shorts” short film inspirational cheer for the people of Hong Kong; for the industry shortage of talent and established “film professional training program”; launched the “Hong Kong Film Workers professionally produced guidelines and Industrial Safety Manual” and so on.

Director Hu Mei plans to take the film’s cast and crew to Qufu in Shangdong Province, Confucius’ hometown, for a grand worship ceremony on the same day. Chow who portrays Confucius in the movie will deliver an elegiac address at the event.

Avatar had been showing on 2,500 screens – a third on 3D and IMAX screens, while the remaining two-thirds were on regular screens, which cost an average of 30 to 40 yuan a ticket, half the price of a 3D ticket. IMAX tickets, however, at 130 to 150 yuan, have been criticized as too expensive for many Chinese moviegoers.

A story about North and South Korean spies called “Blood Brothers” may initially seem like mawkish cliche capitalizing on the tragic divide of the peninsula.

But pleasantly surprising, bona fide entertainment is on offer ― an incisive observation of modern Korea that is tastefully packaged as a humorous and gripping story of a budding “bromance” between foes.

Hong Kong actor Shawn Yue was recently accused of being “arrogant” by the Hong Kong media. He was said to have angered his teacher, Alan Tam, who has decided to groom his junior from the same management company, Gregory Wang, instead.

Wei Minzhi, who is now 23 and a film director, went to the United States as an exchange student. She studied film and TV production at Brigham Young University - Hawaii and is now fluent in English and even has an unidentified but prominent boyfriend. (HunanTV)Related article in English.